calming, gentle, steady, contemplative, consistent, quiet – none of these are words that anyone would use to describe me or my personality.

but these are all essential elements to the practice of yoga.

surprisingly enough, this whim seems to be sticking around – i’ve been working on this consistently 4-5 times a week for a month now. no, i don’t do the chanting. no, i don’t do the relaxation poses. no i don’t understand what they mean about “feeling the life force channel through you, grounding your energy.” no, i don’t care for all the bongo and flute music.

but something keeps drawing me back to it, day after day, to these funky poses, with their funny sanskrit and english names. (and it’s not just because i can do it in my pyjamas!) there’s something about the building process that appeals to me – being able to feel my balance and strength improve, flowing more smoothly between one pose and the next. i’m actively learning, and it taps into something that my running regimen lacks.

there’s not much learning to running – it’s all about just doing more of the same. sure, you can do fancy stuff like high intensity interval training, or hill work, or split times, or improve your vo2 max. but really, once you can put one foot in front of the other, you’ve mastered the basics. which is probably why i like it so much – my natural stubbornness is actually a plus, and no grace or co-ordination is needed.

i guess i always thought that grace and co-ordination were things you were either born with, or you weren’t. i’ve always wanted to be someone graceful and co-ordinated, but never thought it was possible. and instead, yoga is teaching me that these are things which can be acquired by anyone, with enough practice – and practice is something i’m very good at.

and while yoga may not make me sweat as hard as a good run does, it’s far from easy. for something as touchy-feely as it might outwardly seem, it’s surprisingly strenuous. all those yogis don’t have ropy, sinewy bodies for nothing! but i find that getting it right feels *so good*. balancing a tree pose with chest open, knee back, hips squared, spine straight, shoulders relaxed, feels good. stretching out fully into a wheel feels good. getting into a headstand for the first time since i was twelve feels good. i feel taller. i find myself walking around with better posture. and in the short space of just a few weeks, i am much more limber. i’m less creaky.

i started out desparing at how old i felt, and now i’m finding myself somewhat amazed with what i can actually do, given enough practice.

i’ll be tying myself in knots in no time

dashboard confessional – bend and not break

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so, friends – this marks post number #1,000.

back when i was 10 and in fifth grade, i tried keeping my first diary. it was bound in red leather and came with a genuine lock and key. at first i was really good about keeping it up. i wrote about my gymnastics meets, sleepovers at my friend natasha’s house where we did freestyle “fame” inspired dance routines to pat benatar songs, my crush on a boy named marc raila, and heather the school bully. i wrote down what the weather was like, and gave each day an overall letter grade. i managed to keep this up for a whole 2 weeks. and then, i suppose it just started to seem like homework. in fact, i would often go back to the diary after not having picked it up for weeks, and feel guilty enough about the empty pages to start randomly filling in grades for each day, or maybe a one-liner about what had happened, if i could remember. sometimes, i just made it up. the empty pages were an indictment of my neglect, my failure to follow through.

sometimes, however, i was forced to keep a journal against my will. growing up, my father was firmly committed to building in extra-curricular learning experiences for his children wherever possible. so everywhere we went, whether on a week long trip to visit our grandparents in florida, or a summer long camping experience across the country, or a drive up to canada, we were forced to keep a journal of our days. about the museums we went to, or the animals we saw, or the friends we met. every day we had to write *something*, because everything was considered part of our education. i still have those journals, and today they form the foundation for most of my memories of those times, and i’m particularly thankful for that. but god, i hated doing them at the time. other kids got summer vacations full of endless hours of television cartoons – we got homework.

and i’ve said here before that some days, blogging seems like homework as well. that there is pressure to fill the blank page on a regular basis. when i first started this, i wrote only for my own amusement. i then began writing as a way to keep my family and friends informed – to answer the never-ending emails about what “life in london” was like. at a certain point, i began to realise there were a small handful of outsiders who seemed interested in reading my drivel, and i suddenly felt like i had to keep them entertained as well.

but since then, the pendulum has swung back again. nowadays it’s still sometimes like homework – but homework i set for myself. homework i am glad to have done when i finally finish, because it seems i learn something new about myself every time i sit down and start stringing words together. i learn a lot about my thought processes and how my brain works. i learn about why certain things move and inspire me, and others do not. i learn about the persistence of memory and the influence of time. i learn about the importance of familial bonds and the evolution of friendships. i learn about the ripple effect that can turn the most mundane of events into a tidal wave of change. i learn that even those things that frustrate me have something to teach me. i learn to take better note of the good that pervades my life, and the lessons i’ve picked up along the way. i learn to appreciate art and music. i learn to appreciate the beauty in the details.

i learn so very much.

so it’s still homework sometimes, but homework of the best kind. i may not assign each post a letter grade, or even write about what i saw or did that day. but i am learning and i am following through.

my dad would be proud.

leona naess – on my mind

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for bringing may flowers…

The Coral – Put the Sun Back
The Acorn – Spring Thaw
The Magnetic Fields – All the Umbrellas in London
Regina Spektor – Raindrops
The Weakerthans – Sun in an Empty Room
Architecture in Helsinki – Spring 2008

MP3 playlist (M3U)

and here’s the feed for downloads.

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so:

purportedly the passport interview is to “prevent fraud”.

purportedly the biometric chip is to “prevent fraud”.

and yet my actual passport, when it finally arrives, is just put through the letterbox – in an envelope that says “this is not a circular” so you won’t accidentally throw it out, and with instructions about who to call if if you find a passport on your foyer floor that isn’t yours (or sticking it in freepost!!). no signed-for delivery, no i.d. required.

hell, i have to show identification to pick up my friggen parcels of marshmallows at the post office. yet my passport gets dumped on the rug with the latest bnp election propaganda pamphlets, the furniture catalog addressed to an old tenant, and a coupon for £5 off my next window washing.

is my biometric passport secure?

not so much.

nofx – 100 times fuckeder

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to my darling sis, who keeps me in peeps (and my dentist in business)

love, your e.t.

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so i’m officially registered to vote, and my first election is coming up on 1 May for London mayor.

J got a brochure in today’s post outlining the choices. up to now, i can’t say i’ve paid a lot of attention. in fact, part of me was hoping i wouldn’t get registered in time, because the three major candidates (well two major candidates, and one b-stringer) are all a bunch of nitwits. there’s red ken, barmy boris, and brian who?

here are my alternate choices, according to the pamphlet:

bnp: “remember London the way it used to be? asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are engulfing London. stop immigration. house british people first – it’s only fair. british jobs for british workers.” “we should celebrate things like st. george’s day and other christian festivals like st. patrick’s day, instead of other festivals such as ramadan and eid.”

bnp – the (not even thinly veiled) racist party

the left list: “take the battle for the future of London’s working majority against the wealthy minority into City Hall. London would be better with stronger trade unions.”

left list – the delusional socialist party.

the green party: “abolish the congestion charge for the cleanest cars, while charging the gas-guzzlers more. oppose all airport expansion. vote green party as your first choice, and use your second choice for the ‘least worst’ of the other main candidates.”

green party – the “we haven’t got a snowball’s chance in global warming hell” party

uk independence party: “no to mass immigration. no to the european union. cap the cost of the olympic games.”

ukip – the “closing the barn door after the horse has left the stable” party.

the christian choice: “promote marriage and stable family. stop the mega-mosque. champion the unborn.”

christian choice – the “what would jesus do (except practice tolerance towards other religions and beliefs)” party.

the english democrats: “putting england first. £13.5 billion of your money bankrolls scotland every single year. st. george’s day is mocked.”

english democrats – the “wake up and smell the scottish oil money before you go cutting off your nose to spite your face” party.

london elections: what a joke.

dinosaur jr – freak scene

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“such beauty exists in this world as my eyes would not have believed, and it restores me – heals the damage of neglect like a balm, smoothes the thin patches and fills up the careworn gaps of my soul.”

it’s earth day.

i know the tendency is to roll one’s eyes at yeat another “designated liberal cause day” – but the longer i live in major cities, the more i appreciate nature. i *need* that place to escape to. i need to know that there’s somewhere i can go and stand amongst trees, or at the edge of the sea and be still, and have stillness echo back. someplace where the air is so pure, it hurts to breathe a little. it touches a deep primordial chord in me.

as a kid, my parents bought some land out in western massachusetts. it was only 12 acres or so, but it was ours. to camp on. to build imaginary forts in. to share with woodland creatures. those memories – leaving berries on our giant rock for the birds, naming our giant tree, playing with newts and toads, peeling off chunks of moss and bark for decoration – gave us a sense, not of ownership, but of stewardship. a discarded beercan or evidence of an old campfire felt like a personal transgression. it was our patch of land and we loved it fiercely, as only kids with bare feet, pine needles and wild imagination could.

but besides just our land, we camped a lot as kids. all across the u.s. and back, twice. we were fortunate enough to see most of the major national parks in the u.s. and much of canada. we saw geysers and sequoias and canyons and bison and deserts. we went on innumerable park ranger hikes, exploring the minutia of nature’s miracles up close, and gazing out at stunning expanses of vista. seems like everywhere we went was tied into nature somehow – mom was always identifying plants and birds, dad was always building log cabins and wooden boats. we were always sailing, or biking or hiking somewhere.

and as an adult, i’ve been privileged to see some of the great natural wonders of the world. places so beautiful, they knocked the wind out of me. places of such intense beauty, it overwhelmed the senses. from dramatic exotica to quiet pastures.

i have been so terribly lucky in this lifetime – that i know what it’s like to play with pinecones, to toast marshmallows under the stars, to glide down a glassy bend of river in a canoe, to stand at the foot of a mountain looking up at the peak.

but my favourite place will always be that little patch of woods where i grew up. that little plot, with its pedestrian rocks and trees and toads, is just as important to me as the most majestic of mountains. that’s what i think of when i think about protecting the earth. it’s what taught me the importance of stewardship, and it scares me to think about a future where that kind of childhood is no longer possible.

donavon frankenreiter – wondering where the lions are (bruce cockburn cover)

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seems i’m not the only one who thinks the passport interview scheme is a waste:

Millions of pounds are being wasted on a scheme aimed at combating passport fraud, the Conservatives have said.

The party voiced its concern as the BBC learned that out of 90,000 applicants given compulsory face-to-face interviews, none had been turned down.

…

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said the interview process and its charges were a waste of money.

“Every hardened criminal, organised gang and international terrorist are not going this route to get their fake British passports, they’ll be doing [it] other ways.

“A significant chunk of the cost of a passport is now going on these interviews, which so far are proving to be completely useless.”

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damn, it’s a good time to be a boston sports fan.

the sox look like they’re off to a good start, and we’re ahead in our series with the yanks.

the celtics – oh my beloved celtics! i was a *die hard* basketball fan throughout the 80s. i probably loved basketball as much as i loved baseball, and that’s saying a lot. then the celts began a long downward slide through the 90s, they moved from the historic boston garden, the style of play changed to mostly fast-break dominated by one-superstar teams, and keeping up with my home team became logistically difficult while i was living in n.y. but now the celtics are *back*, in a big way – they finished the season at 66W – 16L, and start the first round of the playoffs tonight against the atlanta hawks.

and my bruins boyz! they’ve struggled a lot in the past few years – trying to find a good mix, trading and trading some more, bringing in new management. showing some sparks of life, then sinking to the back of the pack. but against the odds, they’ve managed to eek their way into the stanley cup playoffs, and are hanging tough against the hated habs in a 3-2 series. game 6 is tonight!

where i really want to be today, is in my brother’s living room, in front of his wall-size high-def screen, with a sam adams in one hand and a remote in the other.

that would be bliss.

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so i sent off for my first UK passport a month ago.

first, they asked my referee to confirm all his passport details. unfortunately he was on holiday for 2 weeks. (their flimsy excuse was that they didn’t have his passport number in their database – which, if it were true, i can only assume would have raised major alarm bells each and every time they’ve swiped his passport at immigration for the 8 years he’s lived here.)

now, i’ve been selected for interview.

which is good really – i was starting to feel ignored. because i haven’t already been interviewed in person by them, oh…. at least a half dozen times i can think of. because i haven’t already had to prove my identity, provide intimate details of my life (including information about my parents, grandparents, and ex-husband, which cannot be of *any* interest to them whatsoever), and allow background checks into my tax records, finances, and employment. they’ve ascertained my identity two separate times when i applied for work permits, once when i applied for my spouse visa, once when i applied for my permanent residency, and two separate time when i applied for my citizenship (last done less than 6 months ago).

they have access to my bank details, they have access to my travel patterns, they can track my mobile phone, they can read my emails, they have me on CCTV about 300 times a day. they have possession of my u.s. passport.

there is not one single iota of information they do *not* know about me. what on earth can they possibly confirm through interview? when my last menstrual cycle was?

in the meantime, i can’t even book a holiday anywhere, so i’m stuck here all through may when the rest of the u.k. is off galavanting about.

the more i think about it, the angrier i get. nothing in this country ever goes smoothly for me. just give me my fucking passport already.

spoon – anything you want

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“all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”

governments may not be accountable to a conscience, but ordinary people are – and they will not be complicit in the suffering, even if presidents and courts turn a blind eye:

South African dockers are refusing to unload a Chinese cargo ship carrying 77 tonnes of small arms destined for Zimbabwe.

The arms, including three million rounds of ammunition suitable for AK47s and 1,500 rocket-propelled grenades, were ordered by the Zimbabwean military at the time of the March 29 election – which Britain and other Western powers have accused Robert Mugabe of trying to rig.

The arms arrived at Durban, South Africa, on Wednesday aboard the Chinese-owned An Yue Jiang and must be taken by road to landlocked Zimbabwe, where the Government has been accused of arming rural militias before a possible run-off vote for the presidency. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has even accused Mr Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) of preparing for a “war” against the people.

January Masilela, the South African Defence Secretary, said yesterday that the shipment had been approved this week by the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), which he chairs. “This is a normal transaction between two sovereign states and we don’t have to interfere,” he said.

But opposition parties slammed the decision to grant the transit permit and the country’s main transport union said that its members would refuse to unload the cargo.

“We do not believe it will be in the interest of the Zimbabwean people in general if South Africa is seen to be a conduit of arms and ammunition into Zimbabwe at a time when the situation could be described as quite volatile,” said Randall Howard, a spokesman for the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU).

“As far as we are concerned the containers will not be offloaded”.

Rafeek Shah, defence spokesman for the Democratic Alliance, the main South African opposition party, added: “The world’s astonishment at President Mbeki’s political defence of Robert Mugabe will likely turn into outright anger as we are now not only denying the existence of a crisis in Zimbabwe, but also actively facilitating the arming of an increasingly despotic and desperate regime.”

(hat tip to charlotte)

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“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

- Carl Sagan

shamelessly stolen from everybody cares, everbody understands. it was just too good not to.

ben lee – float on (modest mouse cover)

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this story made my week. for a team which so often laughed at our superstitions and curses, when it comes to their own playground, it seems they’re taking no chances.

A construction worker’s bid to curse the New York Yankees by planting a Boston Red Sox jersey in their new stadium was foiled when the home team removed the offending shirt from its burial spot.
…

The team said it learned that a Red Sox-rooting construction worker had buried a shirt in the new Bronx stadium, which will open next year across the street from the current ballpark, from a report in the New York Post on Friday.
…

It took about five hours of drilling Saturday to locate the shirt under 2 feet of concrete, he said.

On Sunday, Levine and Yankees CEO Lonn Trost watched as Gramarossa and foreman Rich Corrado finished the job and pulled the shirt from the rubble.

In shreds from the jackhammers, the shirt still bore the letters “Red Sox” on the front. It was a David Ortiz jersey, No. 34.
…

Castignoli, 46, said he became a Red Sox fan during his childhood in 1975 when he idolized slugger Jim Rice.

As construction began for the new Yankee Stadium, Castignoli said his union got after him to work on the project. The Red Sox fan was reluctant.

“I would not go near Yankee Stadium, not for all the hot dogs in the world,” he told the Herald.

But he relented, and hatched the plan to plant the jersey. He said he worked just a single day at the stadium project.

“It was worth it,” he said.

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encapsulating with one image everything that’s wrong with living in a surveillance society – most notably, that it doesn’t work to stop crime – banksy’s latest artwork is the very definition of irony:

Banksy pulled off an audacious stunt to produce what is believed to be his biggest work yet in central London.

The secretive graffiti artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence despite being watched by a CCTV camera.

Then, during darkness and hidden behind a sheet of polythene, he painted this comment on “big brother” society.

Yesterday the scaffolding gang returned to remove all evidence — again without the camera operator stopping them.

The work, above a Post Office yard in Newman Street near Oxford Circus shows a small boy, watched by a security guard, painting the words: “One nation under CCTV”.

Andrew Newman, 35, a businessman from Dulwich who works locally, said: “It was only on Sunday morning that the Post Offices guys realised what had happened.”

you can see exactly where the cctv camera is in relation to the painting here.

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calling a truce is hard work.

my body and i have been engaged in a war for years. or, more accurately, i’ve been waging a one-sided offensive attack against my body for most of my life.

i’ve done some pretty horrible things to my body. and ironically, when i was at my unhealthiest (vomiting daily, smoking a pack and a half a day), i got the most compliments. i’ve never been a skinny girl, and it’s hard to look back on those dramatically slimmer photos of myself without a little bit of wistful envy. even with the benefit of hindsight, it’s difficult to look at those pictures and see them for what they really were: a sad, sick girl who was trying so hard to be in control, but so desperately out of it.

it’s even harder to see that picture objectively when i’m not thrilled with (what seems to be) a here-to-stay older, heavier, softer version of myself. i first gained a few extra pounds when i quit smoking – but i was happy enough to make that tradeoff. then i put on a few more pounds when we went travelling – but i certainly wasn’t worried about dieting while traipsing about seeing the world. it was only the other day that i realised i’ve been working at this same extra ten pounds now for the past two years. and it occurred to me that maybe this is the new normal for me.

and ten pounds isn’t a lot, i know, though i admit i’d love to lose it. but honestly, what i really want, more than anything else, is to not feel a slave to my body image issues. i am so goddamn tired of thinking about my weight – it feels like something dead and festering that i’ve been lugging around, year after interminable year. something toxic that has taken up so much headspace, for so very long. because truth be told, no matter what the scale says, or how easily my belt buckles – i’ve never been happy. never. even at my thinnest, i wasn’t happy. even at my strongest, i wasn’t happy. it’s extremely upsetting to think about the amount of time and energy i’ve invested in being miserable over the course of my life.

what i want is this: to exercise because it makes me feel good, and not out of a burgeoning panicky fear of a number. to eat mostly healthy stuff, but indulge in occasional treats without berating myself as being weak-willed. to accept that i’m no longer the same jean size i was in my 20s, and to understand that that’s normal – not feel like it’s a deeply personal failing.

i just want to be happy with my body. for once in my life, i want to feel happy in my skin. it shouldn’t be such a big thing, but just thinking about how overwhelmingly intense that sense of relief would be, makes me well up. the idea of being free of that heavy burden – the self-criticism, the internalised hatred, the fear – would be even better than being 9 stone again. it would be the best kind of weight i could ever shed.

after all these years, i think i’m finally beginning to understand that being happy in my body actually has very little to do with my body. it’s not the amount of space my physique takes up in my clothes – it’s the amount of space i let it take up in my brain.

changing my body, as much of a struggle as that has always been, is not the hard part. changing my perspective is far, far more difficult.

it’s hard to let go. and to trust that letting go of my rigid need for control, does not mean i will spiral out of control. because for most of my life, i thought the important thing was to forcibly subjugate my physical self to my mind’s will, to make it do what i wanted, to show it who was boss. my corporeal desires and needs and limits were something to be conquered. and i did – often at the expense of my health, both physical and mental.

i am slowly realising i can only achieve that lasting peace that i so yearn for, by starting with a ceasefire. stop viewing myself as the enemy. stop attacking myself with guilt and shame. so i find myself trying to broker a truce. trying to find a middle ground i can live with by redrawing the boundaries, letting go of that fear, and practicing some tolerance.

it’s new ground for me. i’m still in negotiation talks with the thighs.

the promise ring – happiness is all the rage

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the brits are in a tizzy over teeth.

specifically, gordon brown’s newly-whitened smile. apparently the prime minister had his (rarely seen) grin touched up before doing a cameo on the special charity episode of “american idol” to donate £100 million worth of mosquito nets to africa.

now i’m the first to admit that i find it refreshing that over here, people on television are not contractually required to look like plastic mannequins spit-polished to within an inch of their life. and when i go for a visit home, i do find it jarring to see so many blinding white smiles and airbrushed faces staring back at me everwhere i turn.

and while there are plenty of brits with perfectly unremarkable choppers (not too yellow, not too crooked, just right), the fact is that this laissez faire attitude to dentistry mean that there is a much higher proportion of people (including public personalities) with astonishingly wonky smiles.

however the idea that having nice looking teeth is somehow to be derided, is somehow becoming “americanised”, is rather much.

after all, britain: like it or not, gordon brown is the global face of your nation. if it looks like the second most powerful man in the world can’t access proper dental care in his own country…. well, it just doesn’t reflect very well, now does it?

cut the man a break – it’s not like anyone is going to start mistaking him for george clooney any time soon.

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Poets may praise a wattle thatch
Doubtfully waterproof;
Let me uplift my lowly latch
Beneath a rose-tiled roof.
Let it be gay and rich in hue,
Soft bleached by burning days,
Where skies ineffably are blue,
And seas a golden glaze.

For oh the South’s a bonny clime
And sunshine is its life;
So there I’ll finish up my time
A stranger unto strife.
And smoke my pipe and sit aloof
From care by miles and miles,
Sagaciously beneath a roof,
Geranium-gay and panic proof,
Of ruby tinted tiles.

“red-tiled roof” – robert william service

vampire weekend – mansard roof

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it’s opening day at fenway.

and bill buckner threw out the first pitch.

in order to understand the magnitude of that act, you have to understand just how completely, utterly, and catastrophically devastated every red sox fan was that horrible night in 1986. old men were on the brink of witnessing something they never thought they would live to see. people had popped the corks on bottles kept sacred for years. and then the ball, and by extension, bill buckner… rolled into infamy.

and red sox nation fell to its knees and wept.

old grudges die hard in the bitter hearts of new england sports fans. from that day forward, bill buckner became the symbollic whipping boy for every failed hope, every heartache sustained, ever tear shed. he became the bearer of nearly 70 years of cursed belief, and he would carry that weight until grady little relieved him of it in 2003.

that he was invited to throw out the first pitch in the hallowed grounds of fenway – that he did so to a standing ovation – is more proof than anyone could ever need about the kind of team we are now. the kind of fans we are now.

we can afford to be magnanimous now. we can be gracious and forgiving.

we can collectively bury any residual silliness about curses or jinxes.

with a single pitch, bill buckner gave us the opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief, and let the old grudges evaporate with the ghosts of history. and the realisation that in doing so, we unshackle billy buckner, but more importantly, ourselves from the past.

redemption. it feels good.

thanks, bill.

bernard fanning – wish you well

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…and is trying to look out for my dental health!

i have the bestest sister evah.

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in retrospect, i should have known within the first few minutes it wasn’t going to have a happy ending. as she sat me down in the chair and asked, “so what are we doing today?”, she was visibly distracted as i was trying to describe what i wanted. quite long in front, i said, pointing to an inch below my collarbone, and to the base of my neck in back. ultra short, choppy fringe in front. layered a tiny bit at the ends so it swings under and has some movement. she nodded absentmindedly as she looked around for a shampooist. red flag #1.

back in the chair after the requisite shampoo, i sat staring into the mirror, suddenly realising her own hair didn’t look that great. it was kind of haphazard and a little dowdy, with lots of salt and pepper in it – the “too busy to really do my hair in the mornings much less care about dying it” look. red flag #2. she wielded the comb awkwardly, pinning the lengths of my hair in front of my eyes.

and before i knew it, i could see that it wasn’t what i’d asked for. the front was too short, the back too long. i was getting the matron’s version of a bob, but there was nothing more i could so about it – the hair was already gone.

i was looking for dramatic, and she kept trying to give me the anna wintour pageboy.

i have *very specific* ideas about what i want when it comes to my hair, and my short fringe is my trademark – some people hate it, but i love it. it’s the one thing that makes me feel slightly edgy as i advance further into my 30s. and i know i’ve found a good hairdresser when they listen to my explanation and do exactly as i ask.

she dried my hair and set up her next client before she began on the fringe. at this point i knew she wouldn’t take my short fringe request seriously. she tried to convince me to leave it very conservatively long. red flag #3. i insisted she take it shorter and then shorter again. i pointed to the line of demarcation – the prominent wrinkle across the middle of my forehead. i asked for her to chop into the ends to soften it, and instead she began adding feathery bits, so i stopped her, realising in my mind i’d have to do it myself when i got home. when you’re already planning the corrections you’ll make in front of your own sink with a pair of nail scissors, that’s red flag #4. she couldn’t have made it clearer that she didn’t like the looks of it, but by that point i was just desperate to get out from under her scissors.

when i’d made the appointment, i’d initially asked for my regular stylist, but he was on leave for another two weeks. dying for a cut, against my better judgement i agreed to an appointment with carole instead.

never again. it’s not the worst haircut i’ve ever had (that honour is reserved for the one that made me cry before i’d even left the salon chair). it’s not even horrible. but it’s not what I wanted at all. not by a long shot.

scissors for lefty – lay down your weapons

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i’ve written several times here and on the worldtour blog about the horrific abuse elephants endure to feed the tourist industry. there’s a video now making the rounds of the net showing elephants “painting”.

but please watch this one (the segment entitled “training crush”) or this one instead. this is how baby elephants are tamed in asia, so they can be trained to perform in the first place.

i’ll let my friend andy do the talking on this one.

This is not an example of an elephant expressing itself artistically — the drawing is of a side-view of an elephant, holding a giant flower, of all things. This is an example of an elephant trained (i.e. shouted at, frightened, and hit with sticks) until it could reproduce a sketch made by a human. Other elephants in the video appear to be trained to draw various other things on command. How natural.

Here’s a very credulous article from the Daily Mail about the elephant painting phenomenon:

The elephants are taught to paint by a special trainer, who teaches them to hold a brush with their trunks and copy certain objects, including flowers, trees, and even the Thai flag.

Experts believe that the elephants memorize the image which they can then ‘paint by rote’ over and over again.

…snip… The savannah is not festooned with ancient elephant paintings because, I repeat, elephants don’t draw.

many of these so-called “conservation” efforts train the elephants to paint, or give rides, in an effort to finance the upkeep of the elephants. unfortunately this creates a vicious cycle of demand in the elephant tourism industry.

please don’t support it. elephants do not exist to perform parlour tricks for our amusement. they’re wonderful enough just being elephants. if you want to support elephants without supporting cruelty, please donate here.

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